I wrote this in 2002 and just thought about it today and had to go searching for it on the PC. Crudely edited and formatted as this was from eighteen years ago...

                                                                                                         OUTBREAK

  

To Meg O’Malley, Doctor Brian Hunter seemed more like a college student then a full-fledged MD with a degree in communicable diseases and another in hematology.  He had the sort of boyish good looks that would keep people mistaking him for a much younger man all his life.  His naturally wavy, sandy-blond hair was flyaway and shoulder length, combed haphazardly back away from his face and more or less contained in a stubby ponytail.  There were always stray, wispy strands of hair standing out around his head forming a delicate aura that shone white in the sunlight.  He seldom bothered to shave, but would never allow a full beard or moustache to grow in.  He wore small pewter-framed glasses for close work. His eyes were a startlingly clear blue, very piercing when he was at his most intense.  In this equatorial climate his standard uniform was a black t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, an old pair of Nikes and his white lab coat.  Every time she saw him in the camp’s clinic or lab she was jolted by his youthful appearance and his boundless energy.  Sometimes he seemed to fairly vibrate, even when he was sitting still, hunched over his microscope.  Often he could be seen rushing around the compound, the tails of his lab coat flying in the still, torpid air.  He spoke as rapidly as he moved.  It was disconcerting to work with someone like Brian Hunter, but he was brilliant and dedicated, so they all more or less had gotten used to his presence.  “Here are the blood sample slides you wanted,” she said, setting the rack of slides down on the counter to his left.  He was left-handed.

 “Thanks, Meg.  That was quick,” he replied, pausing to push his glasses up in order to rub his eyes.  He had been peering into the microscope since dawn.  Now his stomach growled loudly as he glanced at his field watch.  “One o’clock already!”  He looked stunned, then flashed a lopsided grin at the pretty Irish lab technician.  “Suppose you’ve eaten already.”

 “Over an hour ago.”  She pulled a cheese sandwich from one coat pocket, a can of Coke from the other.  “I thought you might be too busy to eat.”

 “That’s what I admire about you.  You’re a thinker.”  He took the sandwich and soda  setting them on the counter.  “What’s the latest?” he asked.

  “Three more have died.  Seventeen more have been brought in.  Four of those appear to be in an advanced stage as they exhibit signs of liver and renal failure.  Pat is preparin’ some slides of blood samples drawn from the new patients right now.  I’ll bring them to you as soon as they’re ready.”

  “Has the little girl died?”

  “No.  She’s still hangin’ in there.”

  “When you get a chance draw another sample.  Three tubes should be enough.   I’m going to be running some additional tests later today. Her case is progressing differently from all the others. It’s the same virus, but her body appears to have the ability to sustain a prolonged counterattack on whatever it is that has invaded the blood of these people. I’m trying to find and isolate an antigen in her blood.  If I can do that then perhaps we can develop an antibody or a vaccine and offer these poor people some hope and relief from this thing.”

  “I’ll draw the blood myself, but I’m not sure I can get three tubes out of her.”

  “Do the best you can.  And no slacking in barrier technique,” he warned.  His blue eyes met hers briefly.

  During those few seconds he looked straight at her Meg was rocked by the sudden realization that Brian Hunter had feelings for her beyond those of a co-worker.  How had she missed all the previous signals he must have sent in the past few weeks- or was this something new, something only he’d just become aware of himself?  Her heart skittering in her breast, her mind trying to reconcile itself to this unexpected but not unwelcome revelation , she went out into the corridor and immediately collided with a technician, masked, gloved, and goggled, who was carrying a rack of test tubes containing freshly drawn blood from the isolation ward.  The two technicians staggered and stumbled trying to regain their balance.  The test tube rack tilted and the tubes fell to the floor and shattered, sending up a spray of fine shards of glass and blood.  The masked technician had thrown his arm up to further protect his face, but Meg, completely caught off guard, was struck in the face by sharp glass and drops of blood.

   She was leaning against the wall, her right hand over her right eye, stunned, when Doctor Hunter came rushing out of the lab.  He looked from the mess on the floor, to the masked and safety-goggled technician, then to Meg who only wore latex gloves.  His face was very pale, his blue eyes wide with shock.  “No, Meg!” he cried as the tip of her tongue darted out to lick the droplet of blood poised dead center on her lower lip.  “Spit it out!” 

 With horror she did exactly that, and then felt her stomach roil.  She struggled not to vomit as Doctor Hunter came closer, his eyes on her face.  “God Almighty,” he murmured, a note of near panic in his voice.  He grabbed her by the left wrist and pulled her away from the wall.  “Come on!  Hurry!”

  In the lab he leaned her over the sink and splashed water on her face.   Leaning hard on her shoulders he forced her under the faucet, turning her head to let the water wash directly over her face.  “You’re drownin’ me!” she cried.

  “Hold your breath!” he snapped.  Meg thought for sure he was going to kill her. 

“Don’t just stand there!  Go get Doctor Rosen!” he shouted wildly at the other technician who must have followed them into the lab.  She could not see. Her injured eye was still clamped shut protectively and her left eye was full of water and tears.  “Come on.  Open your eye for me,” he said in a more soothing tone.  “Meg, open your eye and let me see what’s in there.”

  “It hurts!”
              “I know.  I know,” he said quietly.  Gently his fingers probed around her still closed eye.  “Is it glass then?” he asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Damn,” he swore softly.  “All right.  Easy now.  I’m going to blot your face dry.”

  Meg stayed bent over the sink while he blotted her face with paper towels.  She felt the draft caused by the lab door swinging open quickly.  “What’s happened?” Doctor Rosen’s voice demanded brusquely.

  “She collided with the other lab tech in the hall and was splashed with blood.  We think there’s a bit of glass in her eye from one of the broken test tubes.”

  “She’s been contaminated?”  The doctor’s voice held a note of shock and horror.

Meg began to shake.

   “Yes,” Brian Hunter replied, a curious quaver in his response.

   “Then she’s as good as gon…”

   “Doctor, will you kindly examine her eye and treat her injury.”  Doctor Hunter’s voice was suddenly clipped and authoritative.  He put his gloved hand on Meg’s blood splattered sleeve. “Do you want me to go with you?”  She nodded.

   Meg lay on a cot in the isolation tent.  Insects buzzed incessantly around her head, but she was too weak to swat at them.  Her body was wracked by a persistent burning fever. Her head ached.  Her throat was sore.  She was extremely thirsty, but an hour ago she had been unable to hold even an ounce of water down.  The IV irritated her left hand and they had tied her right wrist to the cot rail to keep her from pulling it out.  If the disease didn’t kill her first she was going to die of starvation and dehydration.  Already her fingers were so thin that she had lost her school ring.  Brian had found it, getting down on his hands and knees to search every inch of the floor until with a cry of triumph he’d held up the ring. She had seen a glint of gold, but hadn’t been able to see the ring clearly.  Her injured eye was bandaged. The vision in her good eye was disintegrating.

   As she lay in the hot tent her thoughts ping-ponged tiredly from her family to her cozy little Galway flat, to Brian Hunter hunched over his microscope searching desperately for answers that would come too late for her.  She wanted to cry.  He was trying so hard to find a cure.  Every time he came to see her his face behind the mask looked more gaunt and haggard, his boyish appearance rapidly being replaced by the bleary-eyed visage of a fanatic.  At least his voice was the same.  He still sounded warm and caring.

Doctor Hunter stood beside the small girl’s cot.  It was all he could do not to grab her and shake her, to scream at her to give up her secrets.  He’d seen so many people die already.  Meg was dying.  He could deal with the deaths of strangers, of patients, but not Meg’s imminent passing. She’d come to this distant, hot, nearly primitive country to help these people,  not to die from whatever it was that was decimating the villages in this immediate area.  Why was this child still alive?  Why hadn’t he been able to successfully isolate the antigen in her blood?  Why were all his tests failures?  Dead ends?  Time was running out.  It was rapidly, irrevocably running out.  For all of these people…for Meg.

           He clenched his fists as he turned and strode quickly away.

Meg sensed someone nearby.  She could not open her good eye, but she turned her head very slightly with great effort toward the left.  “It’s me, Meg.”

 “…thirs…ty,” she whispered.  He dabbed her parched lips with a wet cloth.   A few drops of water trickled into her mouth causing her to retch violently.

“Shh!  Shh!” he soothed, stroking her hot, dry cheek.

“I’m…dying.”

“I’m sorry, Meg,” he said, his voice hollow with despair and defeat.

“Bri…an….I”

 “Don’t speak.”

 “I…love…” She heard him bite back a sob.  “Send…ring…home…to Mum.”

 “I will,” he whispered.

 “Tell her…tell…her…I…”  Meg could not speak any longer.  Her strength was gone.

 “I’ll tell her you love her. I’ll take care of everything.  I’ll see that you get home.”  He bent and pressed his masked lips against her cheek.  “I love you,” he whispered at her ear.  A flicker of a smile at the corners of her mouth just preceded a terrible seizure mercifully cut short by the sudden arrival of death.  Meg’s ravaged body sank wearily into Death’s embrace.

  Brian looked at her for a few moments longer then he walked outside into the sultry twilight.

Less than a week after Meg’s death Doctor Hunter was hurrying across the compound when he happened to notice a small boy of about nine years of age carrying a bundle of sticks and boards toward the pit where the bodies of the local victims of the wretched disease were being burned. What caught his eye were pieces of weathered board with something painted on them in black and yellow.  “Hey!  Wait up!” he called.

           The boy, startled by his shout, dropped the bundle and fled.  Brian crouched down, grabbing the narrow, flat slats, pulling them free of the bundle of sticks.  Flipping them all painted side up he put them together like a macabre puzzle, his heart thudding, his stomach roiling.  “My God!” he cried.  “Oh, my God!”  He stood up, looking wildly about him.  The boy was long gone, but Brian knew he must have found the weathered boards somewhere nearby.

 He turned his eyes toward the boards again and the words were like a knife plunged straight into his heart- “U.S. GOVERNMENT BIOLOGICAL WARFARE WEAPONS TESTING AREA-DANGER-DO NOT ENTER!”

COVID Hit Close to Heart and a Warning

Although I am an author and an artist my full time job is as a secretary in a medical office with multiple providers and a fairly large staff. COVID ran through our office which caused a rapidly changing series of events that saw me first moved into a more quarantined area, then sent home to work from home for nearly two weeks before finally being allowed back into the office last week as one of only four office staff/front desk girls allowed in the entire first floor of the building at this time.

One woman, a few years younger than me, had the most serious case of all our office members, providers, and staff. She was hospitalized nearly a month ago and had to be sustained on life support. Updates on her condition were few and far between because of the chaotic manner in which we were working to keep the office running and the patients' needs met with only a handful of employees able to work from home and providers doing televisits from their homes or, if allowed back into the office after being cleared, their offices in the building with limited access to other areas. All any of us could do was pray for her recovery and keep our fingers crossed that she would have the strength and determination to pull through. It was deeply disheartening and saddening to read the daily obituaries and recognize many patient names on those pages. We truly do care about our patients and have known many of them for decades. It was both stunning and sobering to comprehend just how pervasive and widespread this virus is, how invasive and insidious it is, and how rapidly it spreads...and how devastating the outcome can be, especially for the elderly and those with preexisting health conditions as noted by health experts.

Yesterday, the four of us currently working in the office watched the video of our co-worker on our cell phones as she was released from the hospital, in a wheelchair, on oxygen still and behind a mask. But she waved. The hospital wanted to send her to rehab after being in a hospital bed for nearly a month but she defied them, got out of that bed and walked from it to the bathroom with the help of a walker because she wanted to go home that bad and COVID was not going to stop her. In the brief image of her as she approached the family member recording her departure from the hospital one can see the fatigue and the toll this virus has taken on her, and we could understand the long road still ahead of her as she recovers her strength and former vitality.  All four of us cried. All four of us wanted to hug and reassure one another that one day in the future we'll have normalcy back in our lives, but even though the four of us are healthy, feel well, and display no symptoms, we go back out into the world, to our homes and families, out in the community to buy essentials, use the ATM, pick up food at the drive thru, etc...and could be picking up the virus and carrying it around. So while we are allowed to work together, we have to stay as far apart from one another as we can get, wear masks, and gloves, if touching common surfaces the others touch, such as the fax machine, doorknobs, etc.

We're thrilled and relieved that our coworker has survived and has been allowed to go home to start her rehab after such a life-threatening experience with COVID, but we also know it's going to be a long time yet before all of us can work together again and the office will be back to a more normal flow.

Through this whole COVID crisis I've seen two coworkers land in the hospital, the previous one only hospitalized for about a week, and others who were sick for one to two weeks with milder symptoms, and am aware of several still testing positive and some testing negative. Your fellow employees are like your extended family. After so many years of working together you know a lot about one another, and you care about everyone to varying degrees. You don't wish ill upon any of them- yet you are suddenly seeing your workplace deeply rocked by a pandemic that there are people out there denouncing as a hoax, not as serious as the experts are making it out to be, and saying things need to get back to normal quickly. A workplace is a microcosm of the real world. We were hit hard. We very nearly lost someone, could have lost another, and had multiple others sick with varying degrees of illness, some of whom are still recovering at home. The number of us in the office is close to the number in a standard classroom. If we all walked back into that classroom right now, there would be some of us exposed to this virus who would get sick, take it home and perhaps make our family members sick. If we have elderly family members, or family members with health conditions in the home or that we are going to visit and take supplies and food to then we could potentially sicken them, or even be responsible for killing them if we knowingly go to a place where the virus has run rampant. Even with taking precautions you cannot see the virus, so you cannot be sure whether or not you're carrying it home on your skin, your clothing, your jacket, or lunch bag. It should be a cause of concern and not dismissed as "it can't happen to me, I wash my hands and wear a mask...etc." A virus is microscopic. It lives for hours on surfaces. You can potentially bring it home from wherever you go.

I nearly lost not only a fellow co-worker, but someone I care about and consider a friend after 13 years of working together. We've celebrated many occasions in her family, watched her children grow, I've been to her home, celebrated when her granddaughter was born. As I mentioned before, you spend a lot of time on a daily basis with your co-workers, more time with them on an average weekday then you spend with your own family. This could have ended tragically. I'm happier than I can actually express that it had a good outcome for her and her family.

Please be careful and think about what you are at risk for losing if you are too hasty in your pursuit to return to a more normal life. You could be placing a beloved family member, a friend, that friend's family, an acquaintance, that acquaintance's family, and your co-workers at risk. Just stay safe, stay smart, and don't be swayed by ignorance and impatience. Listen to your own common sense, make your choices carefully and considerately. If able, help those who need assistance during this time. If you need help, reach out and ask and don't be embarrassed about it. There are good people in the world; there is help out there.

And thank you to those who are selflessly helping. You are doing something positive to get as many of us as possible through this COVID pandemic. I'll admit right here, I am not particularly religious. I do believe in a higher being we call God. I do believe He does hear your prayers even if you sit quarantined in your home, socially distancing in the office, or while in your car at a red light. He hears what's in your heart. So, simply pray in place, not just for yourself and your family, but for all of us.

He answered our prayers for our co-worker and gave us all a sign of hope which we needed after being hit so hard. If you haven't experienced a close to the heart hit from this virus, then bless you and yours, you're lucky. Our office is just a tiny representation of the entire medical field out there battling COVID on a 24-7 basis. I truly admire those on the frontlines in hospitals and cannot begin to fathom the strength, bravery, and determination powering those health care workers through this crisis. It's too grand a scale to imagine. I'm just thankful that they're there fighting to save lives and sitting with the ones losing their battles who would otherwise be alone.

I wish more people would think before they speak. If you're healthy and your family is healthy it's because so many others are working and struggling to follow the rules and guidelines to keep as many of us as possible safe and healthy. If you're in a big hurry to get back to the way things used to be then be aware that more lives will be lost. Take a long look around you and you may see the face of the next virus victim sitting at your table, lounging on the couch, shooting baskets out in the driveway, asleep in their crib, or coming in from a walk to get some fresh air. Those are the lives you're impatience and lack of understanding is placing at risk, not to mention just your own.

An Older Story Woman Stung By Jellyfish Succumbs

This was written sometime between 2006 and 2012...

                                                                                                                                               

WOMAN STUNG BY JELLYFISH SUCCUMBS

      “Listen to this! ‘Woman Stung By Jellyfish Succumbs!’  Now isn’t that the craziest headline you’ve ever heard?  Why would they even print such rubbish!”
     “Maybe the woman was someone, you know, important or something," I reply as I continue to stack silver dollar pancakes one on top of the other using butter and syrup as mortar. “Maybe she had a rare allergy to jellyfish bites.”
     “And maybe, just maybe, nobody gives a…”
     “Peter!” Mother says, stopping my father’s runaway verbal train dead against the brick wall of her authoritative tone.  I glance up and catch “the eye” she beams my way.  It glances off my optic nerve like a boomerang as I shift my eyes toward my little brother in his booster seat across from me.  He looks startled by the residual hostility that slams into his awareness, drops his spoonful of soggy cereal with a clatter onto the formica tabletop.  His lower lip curls outward and downward in the very beginnings of a good bawl.  “Joey, pick up that spoon and eat your breakfast!” Mother snaps at him.  He jumps as though he’s been goosed by a bare electrical wire.  I feel pity for him for now he looks both stunned and confused.
     “Stow the tractor in the barn,” I tell him, stabbing a pancake with my fork and stuffing it into my mouth to demonstrate.  I chew with exaggerated viciousness, my eyes locked to his.  “Yum,” I say.
     “Don’t talk with your mouth full!” Mother scolds.
     “All I want to know is how the hell a person can die from a single jellyfish sting!” my father grumbles, rattling his newspaper irritably.
     I resume construction on my pancake tower, thinking I might actually be able to top the twenty-one pancakes I stacked when I was ten.  That was around three years ago.  Joey hadn’t even been born yet.  “Eat your breakfast!  Don’t play with your food!  You’re thirteen years old!  No wonder he doesn’t eat!  What kind of example are you setting for your brother?”
     I want to counter by shooting the last question right back at her, but before I can even open my mouth she slashes her butter knife through my sixteen-pancake tower, toppling it into the liquid remains of my scrambled eggs.  I raise my eyes, glaring at her.  Her eyes are hard as diamonds, cold and bitter.  If she was a season she would be winter.  I hate the smug self-satisfaction she wears like lipstick on her mouth.  Under the table I clench my hands into fists, deliberately digging the ragged nubs of my fingernails into my multi-perforated flesh, giving myself the bittersweet pleasure that pain can provide to the emotionally starved.
     “It’s not like you can’t see the damn things in the water,” my father continues, still hidden behind the protective shield of his paper.
     “Let it go,” my mother says darkly, then, “Jamie, you’re finished!  Leave the table!”
     I am released!  Her wrath is not focused on me this morning after all.  As I carry my plate to the sink I hear the flat smack of flesh on flesh followed by several seconds of tense silence, then the high-pitched shriek of my little brother. “What’d you go and hit him for?” my father asks, sounding merely curious rather than indignant.
     “Jellyfish,” I mutter, my voice concealed by the screech of my knife scraping my plate into the sink under the tap.  "Spineless jellyfish,” I hiss as the garbage disposal growls and grinds up my pancakes.
     “Turn that thing off!”  Mother’s voice, strident as an air raid siren, pierces the noise that fills the kitchen- Joey bawling, my father rustling his newspaper, the garbage disposal grinding and slurping.  I give the switch a pert flip then quickly leave the kitchen, going outside into the chilly November morning.
     A little while later I’m sitting on the back steps retying my shoelace when the back door slams open and Joey is shoved outdoors.  He’s saved from certain physical damage by sheer dumb luck.  His trajectory of expulsion lands him against my back so that he simply falls hard on his knees on the step behind me, his arms thrown wide, his face against my spine.  “Get up!” I say, then shudder, the echo of my mother’s voice in mine.  “Come on, you’re all right.  Quit crying.”
     But Joey’s not all right.  His little nose still leaks blood thinned with mucous.  His cheek is aflame with the imprint of Mother’s hand.  There’s blood on his lip and chin too.  I stand him on the ground in front of me, roll his lip down to assess the extent of damage.  A little tear.  Not like the time she smacked him so hard his tooth came right through the skin just beneath his lower lip.  “It hurz,” he says, sounding funny because I still have a hold of his lip. 
     “Yeah, I know, but it ain’t so bad.  It’ll heal.”  I release his lip, fumble in my coat pocket for some tissues and blot the blood and snot, tears and drool from his face.  “Shake it off, kiddo,” I advise as I look into his big brown eyes, but I can’t look for long or it gives me a real heartache.  None of that Elvis Presley heartbreak crap either.  This is the real deal.  I steer my eyes away, gaze across the littered backyard toward the barn.  The front of a rust dulled John Deere tractor pokes from the door like the nose of an old iron horse.  I have an urge to go pat that cold metal nose, but it passes quickly like most of my urges do.  I have lowered myself into the deep end of the pool of apathy.  There’s no lifeguard on duty.
     “Jellyfish,” Joey says, drooling blood and saliva.
     “Yeah, they’ve got stingers like bees,” I tell him.
     “Why?”
     Joey’s never been to the ocean, but he’s seen it on TV.  “I don’t know.  Self defense, I guess.”  He seems about to grill me by means of an endless series of ‘whys?’, so I maneuver to cut the inquisition short.  “Come on, kiddo.  Time to make ourselves scarce.”  I hate weekends.  I dread weekends.  I wish I lived far away at a very strict private school run by ogres who’d never allow me to go home on weekends and holidays.
     “Jamie!  Wait up!” Joey cries.  He’s got something wrong with his left leg, a birth deformity.  It’s a little shorter than his right leg.  He totters when he runs, his own momentum making him sway dangerously side to side like a bowling pin kissed hard by the ball.  “You go too fast!” he complains.
     I stop and wait for him to catch up.  When he reaches me I bend, grab him under the arms and swing him up onto my hip and carry him the rest of the way to the barn.  We have a secret fort in the hay loft.  Only the mice and barn cats know about it.  It’s where we disappear to every weekend after breakfast.  We don’t go back inside until we hear the dinner bell ring.  That’s the unspoken rule.

“I’m hungry,” Joey whines.  He’s lying in the hay beside me.  I’ve been listening to his stomach growl for the past two hours.  His fat lip warps his speech, gives him a lisp.  I checked earlier to make sure none of his teeth had been prematurely loosened and had noticed one was already gone.  I’d spent all afternoon not turning my thoughts toward how that tooth had come to be missing, but it was an unfair fight.  You just can’t pit raw rage against apathy in a fair fight.  The former’s always a heavyweight, always the winner.
     “God damn it!” I shout, rising up from the hay in the near darkness like a wraith.  “Come on!  I’ll wring her neck if she ain’t got dinner on the table!  I swear to God I will!”
     “Jamie!” Joey yelps, frightened.
     “Come on!  Get up!  I’m cold and I’m hungry and I’m tired of laying here in mouse-piss straw listening to your stomach growl like a dog!”  I bend, grasp his skinny wrists and haul him to his feet.  “When I’m older,” I say, bending down so my face is close to his, “When I’m full grown up we’re getting the hell out of here.”  He nods, staring into my eyes, well aware of my often spoken promise to take him away from the farm as soon as I’m able to.  I hate being thirteen.  I hate being old enough to know something is very wrong in our lives but too young to do anything about it.  “Let’s go eat, kiddo.”
     The house is dark.  There’s no smell of cooking coming from any of the gaps around the windows and door.  The pickup truck sits in the yard same as it was this morning.  I don’t recall hearing my father leave to go get a haircut or to buy some feed or anything.  That in and of itself is unusual, cause to suspect something isn’t quite right.  “Wait here,” I tell Joey, setting him on the ground near the chopping block and pile of kindling.  “Just stay put right there.”  His eyes are like teacups, his swollen lip quivering as I mount the back steps and pull open the screen door.  The hinges squeal like stuck pigs and a shiver runs down my spine.
     I open the back door, my lungs feeling fiery with lack of oxygen in my tight chest.  I can hear the ticking of the wall clock.  For a moment that’s all I hear, but then comes the all-too-familiar rattle and rustle of my father’s newspaper.  But it’s dark in the kitchen and he never reads the paper at dinner time.  I peer toward his shadowy form seated at the table.  “Pa?” I say, my voice as parched and dry as the fields this past summer.  “Pa?  Can I turn on the light?”
     “Sure you can,” he says, his voice almost jovial.  This sends another cold shiver shooting down my spine.
     “We’re hungry,” I explain, cold fingers fumbling for the light switch.  I find it, flip it up and blink as  yellow light blooms in the room.  The first thing I notice are the rest of the breakfast dishes sitting on the table, Joey’s cereal bowl still spewing its meager contents toward the lazy Susan in the middle of the table.  No one has replaced the cap on the syrup bottle or put the cover on the butter dish.  The second thing I notice is the odd odor in the room.  It raises goosebumps all over me for it is an odd but familiar odor.  Blood.  I know the smell of blood from when my father butchers the pigs, and when my mother wrings a chicken’s neck then chops its floppy head off.
     My eyes shift from where my father sits at the table hidden behind his newspaper to the empty seat normally occupied by my mother.  I force myself to keep my eyes moving.  My heart now throbs with trepidation as I slowly take in my mother’s worn shoes, her thin legs, the faded hem of her skirt, the riveted wood handle of the knife that protrudes from her chest, the pool of dark, coagulated blood that she lies in.  Behind me Joey whimpers from cold, hunger, and anxiety at being left out in the dark.  “Jamie, can I come in now?”
     “No, not yet,” I reply tensely.  “Pa,” I say, trying to keep the terror out of my voice.  I don’t want for him to lower his newspaper.  I don’t want to see him- his face, his eyes, the set of his mouth.  “Pa?”
     “Woman stung by jellyfish succumbs,” he says as though reading the same headline he’d read to us this morning, but I know he’s no longer reading aloud.  Another deep shudder rattles down my backbone, sets my teeth to chattering.  Behind his newspaper my father begins to chuckle.  The chuckle quickly swells grotesquely into a laugh that sends me backing out through the kitchen door as silently as I can go.  I pull the door shut, but still I can hear him laughing.  I release my sweaty grip on the doorknob, turn and leap down the steps, grab Joey up into my arms in passing.  “Shh!” I whisper in his cold ear.
     It’s a good three and a half miles to the Barnes’ farm across land flat as a pancake.  I’m dizzy with hunger and adrenalin as I hurry away from the house.  Joey clings to me, crying softly but not knowing exactly why he’s crying.  I have no tears.  That well is long dry.  “Stop your crying, do you hear?” I say. 
     I wonder how many footsteps away we are from freedom.  My ears strain for the sound of the old pickup’s familiar rattle and roar, but my breathing fills my ears.  Joey’s shuddery gasps punctuate my weary huffs.  Freedom seems unattainable, as far away as the white stars that twinkle above us in the ever darkening sky.  But I won’t stop walking toward it.  I can’t stop walking toward it for I have made a promise to my brother and I swear to God I will keep it.  No matter what, I will keep it.
     

Camp Nano Not Going Well

I agreed to do Camp NaNo with Kelly this month. I got off to a good start, but then ran into buts of not wanting to do anything but draw cute animals and birds. That seemed to be making me happier than writing. I would write fifteen pages in a burst of productivity and then crash the next day, just wanting to watch westerns on TV and do word search puzzles and not have to think.

I have more than my usual level of anxiety, and quite possibly some mild degree of depression going on. Normally I'm a happy-go-lucky, upbeat person, but since this COVID-19 pandemic erupted I've been feeling frustrated, angry, annoyed, disgusted, and saddened by things going on.

Anyway...I have three books nearly ready to self publish, but little motivation to get things done at resent. I have found some older stories that tweaked my desire to write, but that fizzled out due to stress, I would hazard to guess.

I am over 25,000 words into my Camp Nano novella, but stuck as to the direction this needs to go. Meanwhile, I'm thoroughly enjoying Kelly's Camp Nano project, the prequel to Hawkists. Also I'm reading what all my WhipCity Wordsmiths are posting on our facebook page while we're all practicing social distancing. I'm enjoying the myriad talents and the many genres we all write in. Also, I am enjoying the audio readings by some of my authors. Bravo! They perk up my days!

This evening I was surprised to find someone has ordered a number of my books from Amazon. They are three of my favorites. Two were specifically written for Kelly, and the third is my vampire novel, which is non-traditional, to say the least!

Guess that's it for tonight- off to watch Ghost Hunters! Have a good night!

Eerie & Strange at the Office

A skeleton crew has been allowed back into the medical office where I work. After working from home for a week and a half I moved back into the office this past Monday night during a rain storm (it had let up by 7PM after a day full of torrential bursts of rain and strong gusts of wind that I kept an eye on from the den window as I worked throughout the day.

First of all, I need to say that it is heartbreaking to scan the obituaries each day and find patient names and pictures. Of course not all of them are COVID-19 victims. Some are passing from natural causes or pre-existing terminal health conditions. It's just that the list seems to grow by one or two daily.

I started back at the office yesterday (Tuesday, the 14th). I am alone in suite 2, although there was an NP in making televisit calls from her office I hardly saw her. In suite 1 a doctor was making his televisits from his office at the opposite end of the building from where I work. The woman who scans the EMR into the system was busy going through a veritable mountain of faxes that had come in last week, plus all; the work I did from home which I delivered in a copy paper box Monday night to her work area. There is one receptionist fielding phone cals and call patients to remind them of the televisits the next day. And there is one woman handling referrals, test orders, answering the phone as the back-up receptionist, fielding questions, VNA calls, group home calls, etc. After 13 years of walking through the double suite doing my job it was very strange and somewhat eerie today to walk through darkened areas (no point in leaving lights on when we have no patients and very few employees working at the moment). There is no music, just silence, so when the phone rings it makes you jump.

I'm more or less quarantined to suite 2 but I do have to mask and glove up to go to suite 1 to fax stacks of stuff that need signatures, to be filled out and returned, this includes piles of VNA orders, durable medical equipment prescriptions, mail order medicine orders for nebulizers, and so forth. One other employee and I share the kitchenette, but I just sit at my desk and eat my lunch while she sits behind a wall in the kitchenette eating hers. We both quietly play games or check messages on our phones for an hour while eating and then she returns to suite 1 and I resume my work. Normally the office is full of patients coming and going, providers bustling about, and employees chatting and coming and going. It's like an apocalyptic world where there are just a handful of survivors trying to maintain some semblance of a normal routine.

The office has been so heavily disinfected that there is a lingering irritating miasma of chemical odors hanging in the air. There are no windows to open and we can't just leave doors open or people will walk in and we can't have anyone in the office at this time. It's like sick building syndrome, but the disinfecting had been necessary. I worked all day yesterday and came home with that cloying odor on my clothes, in my hair, in my nose, and most troublesome, in my lungs. This morning I woke up coughing and with shortness of breath and had to use my inhaler for the first time since being sick at the end of January into February. My lung feel irritated by the lingering fumes.

I am happy to be back in my familiar workspace with everything I need close at hand, nt working out of two rooms at my house trying to keep track of paperwork. I'm way more organized at work and can spread out all in one place.

Upstairs the lab is closed and the physical therapy place sees few patients and they are well-spaced. The VNA has some nurses checking in and picking up equipment in the morning, and then the parking lot, normally very busy, is empty except for employee vehicles you can count on one hand.

As a writer, I am constantly observing, listening, and filing stuff away in my brain for use in future stories...believe me, there is a lot of material accumulating for post-apocalyptic stories, and even ghost stories. Social distancing and quarantining has given my imagination plenty of room to expand, plenty f fertile soil for all these ideas to grow in.